Months after Haiti’s prime minister and the UN pleaded for intervention in the violence-ravaged nation, world powers are searching for new ideas with no country eager to lead a force.
In the latest effort, a senior US envoy sought forward movement on Haiti on a visit to Brazil, which spearheaded a previous UN-led mission in Haiti and sits on the UN Security Council.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she came away with the view that the Brazilians under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva “care about Haiti.”
Photo: Reuters
“They want to see something done, and they committed to working with us in the Security Council to find a path forward,” Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on her flight back from Brasilia.
“We’re making some progress, but we’re all frustrated that we have not been able to make more progress more quickly,” she said.
Haiti, the western hemisphere’s poorest nation, has been torn apart by intersecting security, political and health crises, with armed gangs controlling most of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk told the Security Council on Wednesday that Haiti was “dangling over an abyss.”
Initial efforts led by the US aimed for another nation to lead an operation to restore basic security and government functions and pave the way for a political transition.
With no country stepping forward, diplomats said that other options on the table now include establishing a conventional peacekeeping operation with contributions around the world.
The US, long a key power in Haiti that has made major interventions since the 1990s, has focused on sanctions and funding the fledging national police.
US President Joe Biden has made clear he will not put US troops at risk, although his administration has promised support if another country takes the lead.
Canada was seen as the leading contender, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also appeared to conclude that an operation would be too risky.
UN special representative for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said she still hopes a single country could come forward, or that the CARICOM community of Caribbean nations could take the lead.
However, she said it was also time for the UN “to be innovative” and “find other ways of providing this force.”
Brazil has historically sought a UN lead. Any Security Council effort would need to bring onboard veto-wielding China, which resents that Haiti recognizes rival Taiwan.
“It’s pretty simple. No one wants to do it. There’s just no country that right now feels either a responsibility or a compulsion to do this,” said Keith Mines, director of the Latin America program at the US Institute for Peace.
He said that Haiti is not without hope. On Dec. 21 last year, a coalition of political leaders, civil society and business figures signed on to a plan for a transitional government that would culminate in elections by the end of this year.
“There’s this chicken-and-egg problem, because it’s difficult to see how a political process can go anywhere as long as there’s this collapse of security,” he said.
Some US officials are more pessimistic.
“It does not look as if it is going to get better anytime soon,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Congress hearing on Thursday.
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